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Hindrocket of Powerline, who has done yeoman’s work in destroying both the Kerry campaign and the Star and Sickle, isn’t quite as effective in defending the President. He quotes the President’s comments after the infamous pronoun:

I know if steadfast, strong and resolute — and I say those words very seriously — it’s less likely that your kids are going to live under the threat of al-Qaida for a long period of time. I can’t tell you. I don’t have any … definite end. But I tell you this, when we succeed in Iraq and Afghanistan, it’s the beginning of the end for these extremists. Because freedom is going to have a powerful influence to make sure your kids can grow up in a peaceful world. If we believe, for example, that you can’t win, and the alternative is to retreat … I think that would be a disaster for your children.

So, the President is not actually saying that the war is unwinnable, only that it can’t be won in what will have been a total of seven years – almost twice as long as WWII – and that even success in Iraq and Afghanistan would only be the beginning of the end. So, what, figure at least another seven years? Furthermore, he also has no concept of how the war will or even could end. Given that the Israelis have not managed to end their miniature version of hunt-the-terrorist in 30+ years, this statement offers no indication that the President actually believes his imitation of the Israeli two-step will work either.

Nor should it. The grand fallacy in which the nation-builders are trapped is that a simple exposure to Western culture is enough to instill individuals with it. Culture is the product of centuries, not years, and as long as there are Islamic clerics willing to stand openly opposed to Western culture, there will be jihadists willing to strike. The previous victories against the jihad, in the Reconquista and the Crusades, involved crushing and humiliating Muslims, not winning them over. It is a tribute to the strength and spirit of Muslims that they are not easily swayed or conquered. But history shows that it can be done.

The basic problem is that Islam is not only a religion, it is a trans-national state. It has a law, a judiciary and, quite clearly, an army that Daniel Pipes estimates at 100 million. The idea that the war cannot be won because terrorists can’t be found is silly. Wars aren’t won by killing enemy soldiers, they are won by taking the strategic centers, and the strategic centers of Islam are not to be found in Iraq. The truth is that George Bush and company want war without commitment so they have settled for quasi-war without end or disruption to the economy. That is why they won’t win it.

Our leadership has two legitimate choices. Leave them alone – which also means not allowing them footholds in the West – or a total clash of civilizations. Islam had nothing against the United States for most of its existence; the “they hate our freedom” line is monstrously absurd. They have their eyes on Israel and the Islamic lands lost in Western Europe, not the USA. As long as the President and his men try to split the difference, they will be as unsuccessful as we would have been by trying to defeat Nazi Germany by occupying Schleswig-Holstein. As they are not stupid, they realize it as well, but they also know that it would be political suicide to speak the truth.

Jonah Goldberg offers a new and shocking reason to support George Bush:

McCain and Giuliani’s endorsements of Bush Monday night reflected that more than anything else. George W. Bush is the best option available in the range of possible options given the fact that we are at war.

When the President sends off troops

Then everyone must jump through hoops,

Although the war is undeclared

We are appropriately scared.

Lock up the Japs, the Jews, et al

If need be we can kill them all.

For this is what the grown-ups do

Because someone has told them to.

Again, for the Nth time, I remind the gentle reader that there is no historical reason whatsoever to believe that a Democrat will not fight a war. Democrats love war, because it’s the best excuse to increase the size and scope of government that anyone has come up with yet. The fact that the Democratic party is made up of mindless, treasonous peaceniks no more indicates the probable behavior of a Democratic President than does the fact that the Republican Party is filled with legions of pro-lifers mean that a Republican House, Senate, Supreme Court and President have ended abortion.

If the unwinnable war is your only reason to support Bush, you may well be better off with Kerry. Bush has already proven that he’s a wildly incompetent Commander-in-Chief, the jury is still out on Kerry.

LAUER: You said to me a second ago, one of the things you’ll lay out in your vision for the next four years is how to go about winning the war on terror. That phrase strikes me a little bit. Do you really think we can win this war of ter–on terror? For example, in the next four years?

Pres. BUSH: I have never said we can win it in four years?

LAUER: No, I’m just saying, can we win it? Do you say that?

Pres. BUSH: I don’t–I don’t think we can win it. But I think you can create conditions so that the–those who use terror as a tool are less acceptable in part of the world, let’s put it that way.

Very Churchillian. The man has a gift. I got shivers just reading it. Why, Churchill’s six volumes on WWII are just rife with the same sort of lion-like confidence.

Not to mention history. Apparently it isn’t enough that George Delano is Ronald Reagan, but according to Rudy Giuliani, he’s Winston Churchill too. And… and… Cincinnatus and George Washington and Socrates and Paul Bunyan and Julius Caesar and Marius AND Sulla and Frosty the Snowman!

I actually agree that George Bush shows signs of Lincolnhood, but thankfully to a lesser degree. I suppose that calling him a little Lincoln doesn’t quite have the same ring as identifying him with the man who decried the Iron Curtain before the Cold War really started.

George Delano won’t speak out against the jihad even after he’s been fighting it on the periphery for three years, instead of blood, sweat and tears he’s offering us a new Medicare entitlement, and instead of V for victory, it’s U for unwinnable, but you know, tomato, tomahto.

Jonah Goldberg quotes a reader, presumably approvingly:

Just wondered, did anyone notice the echoes of Lincoln in McCain’s speech? Interesting–

(Lincoln) Now we are engaged in a great civil war,

(McCain) We are engaged in a hard struggle against a cruel and determined adversary.

(L) We are met on a great battlefield of that war.

(M) My friends, we are again met on the field of political competition with our fellow countrymen.

(L) It is altogether fitting and proper that we should do so.

(M) It is more than appropriate, it is necessary that even in times of crisis we have these contests

(L) It is rather for us the living, we here be dedicated to the great task remaining before us–that from these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they here gave the last full measure of devotion–

(M) It is left to us to keep their generous benefaction alive, and our blessed, beautiful country worthy of their courage.

I note that McCain and Lincoln appear to have a similar regard for the Bill of Rights.

Gregg writes in:

I am a student of human nature, and after seeing your article get top billing two weeks in a row on WND I thought I would catch Hannity today (I knew they read it). He had Newt on as a guest, and they were both talking about how they disagree with the president on the 527 ban. I started laughing my ass off; it was just as you said it would be:

“Oh, how glad I am that Rush et al agree with me on the unconstitutionality of the ban, now let’s see if they still support the treasonous candidate.”

They did, Vox, after admitting as much. I have read Catholic prophets, bud, but you are an intellectual prophet.

I don’t know about the prophet bit, it was simply the only logical conclusion. I don’t think Sean Hannity would disavow the GOP if it announced it was banning the Lutheran, Methodist and Baptist churches and providing free prostitutes to all high-school students. Because, after all, the Democrats would be worse, since they’d be offering gay prostitutes and banning the Catholic church. And that’s why the Irish water poodle gets a chapter….

From the New Deal through the civil rights revolution, liberalism strove to use expanding government to drive the alteration of society. Conservatism’s mission was largely restoration — rolling back big government. Neither persuasion is now plausible.

Kerry insists he is not a “redistribution Democrat.” But of course he is. And Bush is a redistribution Republican. There is no “natural” distribution of social wealth. Distribution is influenced by many social arrangements, from property laws to tax laws to educational arrangements, all of them political choices. Both parties have redistributionist agendas….

Very few voters care about questions of political process. That is why the political class feels free to act with scandalous impunity, as in this Bush-Kerry collaboration to silence what the political class persistently calls “outside groups.” A question: Outside of what?

It’s nice to see that Mr. Will isn’t interested in waving pom-poms, even in the midst of the Republican convention. He is, as is his custom, genteel but clear in referring to the socialism of both factions as “redistributionist”. George Will, more than any other political writer, has been an influence on my interest in editorial commentary and it is good to see that he perceives the same bi-factional ruling party that I do.

GS woofs like a good little lapdog:

You have joined yourself with the Democrats for a Soviet United States and the candidacy of a treasonous dog. Piss off.

Let’s see, you’re voting for the guy who’s wiped out free speech and is trying to merge the USA with Mexico in imitation of the European Union, but I’m the one supporting a treasonous dog?

*sigh*

Okay, slow learners, it’s basic addition time! If George Bush has 39,999,999 votes and John Kerry has 39,999,999 votes and I vote for Michael Badnarik, how many votes does John Kerry have?

a) 39,999,999

b) 40,000,000

c) five

If you answered (a), congratulations, you are capable of passing first-grade math. If you answered (c), you are a rabbit. If, on the other hand, you answered (b), you are clearly arithmetically-challenged like poor GS. Isn’t math fun?

All candidates start from zero. The fact that the vast majority of Americans are so short-sighted that they will cheerfully vote for their enslavers does not mean that those individuals who still value freedom and human liberty should follow their example.

“If you continue doing what you’ve always done, you’re going to get what you’ve always got.”

UPDATE: GS eloquently adds:

Like I said, piss off. I have read your stuff for the last time. Oh, yes, and one plus one equals two as in one face plus one face equals what you have.

Hark, what’s that I hear? Ah yes, the delicious sound of my readership’s average IQ rising….

Secretary of State Donald Rumsfeld quoted in a US Department of Defense transcript of an interview conducted on June 30, 2004.

SEC. RUMSFELD: Oh, I do. I think basically what we have is we’ve had over our history since World War II basically an idea that we were either in war or we were in peace and that we were in peacetime constraints. And of course, since we don’t have a declaration of war and we’re not in World War III, all of those peacetime constraints and procedures and auditors and contract rules and competitive bidding, all of that pertains. And the effect of it is that you end up in a war on terror, like we’re in, losing lives and yet you are still required to adhere to the rules of peacetime, because we don’t have gradations of between war and peace and therefore we need to find a way to live in this 21st century where threats can come at you from the shadows and from ungoverned areas in ways that are not predictable, as they were, for example, during World War II or during the Cold War, for that matter.

The matter is not up for debate. It is settled. You cannot argue about Congressional authorizations being virtual declarations and whatnot when the Secretary of Defense himself announces that “we don’t have a declaration of war”.

Regardless of what you think of their merits, both the Iraqi War and the War on Terror are extra-Constitutional.

KC writes to correct me:

Greetings & good morning. I’m a regular poster to your site and think your latest article is great with one exception. Rush *DID* and *HAS* denounced the McCain-Feingold “reform” over and over again since it first came up for a vote. He said then that SCOTUS could not be trusted to strike down unConstitutional things because they seem to be making it up as they go along regardless of the Constitution (ie. Ginsberg’s recent references to foreign treaties). He has railed against this over and over as the law empowers “news” organizations (and him) to declare things as “news” and not political commercials/attacks and there’s no way for someone else to respond.

He – and I agree with him on this one 100% – believes in complete transparency. Let US Citizens give whatever amount they want to whichever political campaign they want… but EVERY PENNY must be accounted for in a public and timely manner.

If that’s the case – and I have no reason to believe it isn’t – then I stand corrected, applaud Mr. Limbaugh’s stance and will look forward to him criticizing the President’s latest attack on free speech this week. Unfortunately, I still expect Mr. Limbaugh to excuse these and many other unconstitutional actions and enthusiastically endorse George Delano on the grounds of there being “a war on”.

As for campaign financing, I don’t see any need to account for it. Money is fungible, so tracing it is simply an exercise in futility that only creates a need for government bureaucracy. If a politician obeys the Constitution, who cares who’s funding him? If a politician doesn’t, he should be impeached, removed from office, and if necessary, tried for treason.

Jeff Jacoby fails to consider all the possibilities:

WHY KOCH IS ON BUSH’S BANDWAGON. Ed Koch identifies himself with pride as a lifelong Democrat. The former New York City councilman, congressman, and three-term mayor says his values have always been those of the broad Democratic center — the values of FDR and Harry Truman, of Hubert Humphrey and Daniel Patrick Moynihan. He disdains the Republican worldview as cold and unfeeling — “I made it on my own, and you should too.” The Democratic philosophy, by contrast, he sums up as: “If you need a helping hand, we’ll provide it.” No surprise, then, that Koch disagrees with George W. Bush on just about every domestic issue, from taxes to marriage to prescription drugs. But he’s voting for him in November.

I seem to recall someone saying that “Whenever someone is hurting, government has a responsibility to act.” That sounds a lot like Mr. Koch’s description of the Democratic philosophy: “If you need a helping hand, we’ll provide it.” Who was it that said that? Oh, that’s right, George Delano Bush! Why are Republicans supporting him again? I’m just curious.

Sure, it’s possible that Koch is supporting Bush solely because of the war/s, even though Kerry is likely to nuke half the Middle East just to get everyone’s mind off Cambodia and prove that he really truly always has been a Total Warrior Hero You Don’t Want To Mess With. But it’s also quite possible that Koch is supporting Bush because he knows perfectly well that they share the same philosophy.